A question that I hear a lot while speaking with event producers is, “Do I need to be on social media?”
The short, less complicated answer is no. Managing a social media page is a time commitment. If you don’t have the time to at the very least respond to people on social media (that’s the whole point), your efforts could actually reflect badly. However, if you have a little bit of time and energy to maintain a profile (or two!), social media can provide fantastic returns: it helps build your brand, reminds people of your organization or company and its mission, and is an easy way to directly engage with your audience.
To figure out whether or not social media is worth your time, ask yourself a couple of questions:
Is my audience on social media? Do they want to speak with me there?
Some people do most of their interaction—and most of their day-planning—around social media. When you have an extra few minutes, look for similar organizations on social media. Are people responding to their posts and event invites? You should also use this time to see what people are saying about you online, if anything. Even if you can’t maintain a social media profile, you should do this anyway. Set up a Google alert for you or your organization’s name in quotes. Search on Twitter for you or your organization. Search Facebook to see if you have a Community Page. If a lot of people are talking about you already, you may decide investing time in social media is a wise idea.
Which sites should I be using?
This is not an all-or-nothing game. If you’ve found that most of your fans are on Facebook, start with just Facebook and go from there. If you primarily want to share photos, start with Flickr. If you primarily just want to share video, start with YouTube. There’s always time to expand your presence. In the beginning, keep it manageable.
Who will maintain my profiles?
When making time for social media, it’s important to figure out who’s going to be maintaining your profiles. This could be one person or even a collection of people, provided you have the workflow down. Who in your company is skilled at writing content? Who has the company voice down the best? Is someone in your organization already social media savvy, and just hasn’t used those skills at the workplace yet? If you’re a small organization, bring it up to your team. You could be surprised to see who steps up. Or, if everyone is interested in pitching in, the time and effort could be spread so that one person is not responsible or all your social media management.
What next? How do I get started?
That really depends on which social network you want to start with. The Event Promotions Team is there to guide you through the process! Give us a call at (800) 838-3006 (option 5) or email me at promo@brownpapertickets.comand we’ll help you get up and running in a jiffy. No questions are too small! Whether you’d like help setting up your first Twitter account, or something more advanced like running a video campaign on Facebook, we can help you get going.
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